


You've got a warm heart, you've got a beautiful mind

by voices_in_my_head



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: I Made Myself Cry, Oops, character dead - we all know it's going to happen, compliant with S8, spoilers for S8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 07:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13497228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voices_in_my_head/pseuds/voices_in_my_head
Summary: "People try to give them privacy. It’s not exactly easy, being cramped up in the sewers, but they try and keep their distance, out of respect.Rick knows they all want to say goodbye too, but right now he just needs to be alone. Alone with his son. His beautiful, amazing, brave, smart… dying son."Rick and Carl at the end of S8EP8.





	You've got a warm heart, you've got a beautiful mind

 

_We are the reckless,_

_We are the wild youth_

_Chasing visions of our futures_

_One day we’ll reveal the truth_

_That one will die before he gets there._

Daughter – Youth

People try to give them privacy. It’s not exactly easy, being cramped up in the sewers, but they try and keep their distance, out of respect.

Rick knows they all want to say goodbye too, but right now he just needs to be alone. Alone with his son. His beautiful, amazing, brave, smart… dying son.

Michonne has moved Siddiq away and Daryl has Judith and now it’s just the two of them.

“We could… A cure could be…” Rick starts, not sure himself where he’s going with that train of thought, but just knowing that he has to try, that he won’t forgive himself if he doesn’t.

Carl just sends him a look and if the situation wasn’t so dire, Rick would smile because he’s been getting a lot of looks from Carl lately. For a very long time, if he’s fully honest and it should be the other way around, yet here they were.

“Dad, that’s not… You’re not keeping me locked up in a room for God knows how long,” Carl says and Rick nods because he’s right and they both know it. If they knew… if they knew for sure, a couple more weeks, maybe some months… But they don’t and Carl won’t be there anymore. He’ll be gone and his body will start to disintegrate and if he got away and killed someone, Rick would never forgive himself and Carl… Carl just wouldn’t be there, even if they did cure him.

“I’m so sorry,” Rick forces himself to say between the gasps and tears because he is. Sorry that Carl got bitten, sorry that Carl had to live through all of this, sorry that Carl won’t have the life that he deserves…

“Dad,” Carl says and it sounds broken. He’s crying too and Rick forces himself to take deep breaths. There have been many moments over the years where Rick was falling apart and Carl was his rock. He won’t let his last moment go like that, not this one.

“It’s going to be okay,” Rick forces himself to say and there’s that look again, but not as powerful anymore, and maybe it’s the strength it takes to keep appearances up, but Rick chooses to believe that Carl needs this too, this complete and utter lie but beautiful all the same.

“Your mom is… so proud of you. I am so proud of you. And you… you’re going to see her and you’re going to look down and see Judith grow up and I am going to tell her all the stories and she’ll grow up knowing she had the best damn brother in the whole world,” Rick promises.

“You really think she’ll be proud of me?” Carl asks, voice breaking, sounding younger than he is. No, that’s wrong. Sounding as young as he truly is.

Rick moves so that they’re sitting side by side, and pushes Carl’s head against his neck, petting his hair.

“I have absolutely no doubt. She always used to say you were the best damn thing she did. I’ve never seen your mom as happy as when she got pregnant with you. You have no idea how many hours she spent just looking in the mirror, at her belly. Whenever I caught her doing it, she just looked amazed at me,” he has to stop to take another deep breath, to be able to speak between the tears. It hurts to talk about Lori, even after all this time, but Carl should hear this and despite the bad moments, there were some damn amazing moments between Rick and Lori and he refuses to let his son die without knowing just how much he was loved, ever since his conception.

“She used to ask me, “can you believe we created a life?” We only decided on your name two weeks before you were born. Your mother had lists and lists of names. By then we already knew it was going to be a boy and I had given hundreds of possibilities… But your mom said your name had to be just right. It couldn’t just be any name. She had to… know it was right,” Rick chuckles. Then takes another breath, remembering all those moments, those smiles… The stress too but after all this time, he’s able to look back with just fondness. It hurts but it’s a good hurt.

“How did she know?”

“There was a shop near where we lived. It closed not too long after you were born but they used to have beautiful handmade things. Your mom spent hours there. One day she came home with a small placard. It was blue and Carl was written in it. She just smiled and said, “this is the name”.

“Did you like the name?” Carl asks and Rick can hear the smile in his voice.

“Honestly, by that point I was ready to agree to pretty much anything,” Rick confides and Carl starts laughing, but it doesn’t last more than a few seconds before it turns into a cough and Rick squeezes him, forcing his eyes closed to keep the tears at bay. After… after he can cry. Now he has to be strong.

They’re silent after and Rick looks around him. The only person looking back is Michonne, now standing with Judith and Rick knows she wants her own moment to say goodbye. Knows that she deserves it but he needs a few more moments. Just a few more. She nods back like she read his mind and Rick smiles.

When he looks down, Carl is staring back at him. He turns back to Michonne, then back to Rick.

“You can’t… you can’t give up. I know it’s going to be hard but you have to keep going.”

Rick nods but can’t say anything. He knows… he knows what he has to do. But just the idea of it… Waking up in a tomorrow without his son alive, by his side… Rick takes a deep breath, feeling a few tears slide down his face, mix up with the blood and dirt on his beard.

“I’m really glad you found Michonne. She’s good to you,” Carl says.

“You know she loves you, right? And she’s proud of you too, so, so much,” Rick says and Carl nods.

“Some people don’t even get one mom, but I got two amazing ones,” Carl says and he sounds amazed and Rick lifts the hand not holding onto Carl up to his mouth, keeping his sobs silenced.

“If you cry… I’m going to cry too,” Carl says. “I don’t want to die crying.”

Rick nods repeatedly, but it takes him a few seconds to finally do it.

“Shane is going to be there too. He’s going to freak when you tell him you were saved by a tiger,” Rick says, knowing that he has to keep talking, otherwise he really will break down and it’s not time for that yet.

“Yeah?” Carl asks, turning back to him, smiling, though it’s pained. Rick knows there was nothing to be done back then, with Shane, but he will never forget the man that stood through thick and thin with him and made sure his family survived when he wasn’t there.

“He always loved tigers. Really, all types of giant cats. Hell, even small ones, though he was allergic. I had a cat when I was a kid… Shane loved him. Wanted to sleep with him whenever he slept over… I had to stop it ‘cuz otherwise he’d probably stop breathing during the night,” Rick chuckles and so does Carl, “he used to say it’d be worth it.”

“I don’t believe you,” Carl replies and Rick looks affronted at him.

“I guarantee you. That man’s love for cats was legendary. You have no idea how many times I had to stop him from getting a drunk tattoo of a lion or a tiger or even a panther.”

“Why? He had tattoos.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t get tattoos drunk. Your uncle Shane… when he was drunk, he felt like he was on top of the world. There was nothing he couldn’t do, nothing was aiming too high…” Rick ends on a whisper, lost in a world that ended a very long time ago.

They’re silent again and it still hurts, more than anything Rick can think of, but he feels calm too. Right now, he has a mission: to make sure Carl goes as quietly, calmly and as happily as possible.

“I hope there’s a Heaven and that I really get to see them,” Carl says and Rick squeezes him.

“There is and you will. What’s the point of making life this shitty if there isn’t one hell of an afterlife?”

“It isn’t… Not everything is shitty,” Carl retorts.

“Yeah… You’re right. I got you and Judith and even though…” Rick can’t finish the thought, backtracks to something easier to say, “the pain is worth every single second I got with you two.”

There’s more that Rick wants to say. He wants to say “I’m sorry I didn’t save you, I’m sorry you don’t get to see the world as it should be, as I was going to make it for you” but Carl already knows it and that shouldn’t be their last conversation.

“There’s so many people to see,” Carl says and starts naming them, “Dale, Sophia, Amy, Andrea, T-Dog, Jacqui, Beth, Hershel,” Rick wants to stop him, it hurts to think back on everyone they’ve lost, but he lets Carl continue, if that’s what he needs right now. “Axel, Karen, Patrick, Lizzie, Mica, Dr. S, Tyreese, Sasha, Abraham and Glenn.”

There’s a pause.

“I think I’m forgetting some.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’ll all be there to welcome you with open arms,” Rick promises and even he has forgotten some of the names, some of the moments… But some he never will and it’s for those that they stay alive.

He looks over at Michonne, ready to call her over but is stopped by Carl squeezing his arm. He looks down, with a confused expression.

“Siddiq… Don’t punish him for this. It was my choice to save him and to fight those walkers.”

“If I’d listen to your earlier-“ Rick starts but Carl shakes his head and talks right over him.

“You did what you had to do. What you thought was right. Just like I did. Mom said sometimes it was easy to know what was right, but sometimes it wasn’t. What she didn’t say is that it’s not one thing for everyone at the same time,” Carl looks him seriously in the eyes, tears gone. “Don’t beat yourself up for this. I want you to remember the good times, not chastise yourself for what could have happened.”

Rick nods, forcing the tears away. “You are… the best damn son anyone could ever have asked for, you know that? The best son, the best kid… You are smart and brave and kind and-“

“You’re gonna make me blush,” Carl interrupts but he’s crying and Rick just hugs him.

Deep and loud breaths. Carl hides his face away in his shirt and he’s crying and Rick looks over at Michonne and nods at her and she immediately passes Judith to Tara.

She comes and sits on Carl’s other side, dropping over his back, almost like a blanket and she’s crying too and Carl… he deserved so much better.

There is nothing Rick can do about it now but he can be damn sure that the world that is left is a world his son would have been proud to be part of.

 


End file.
